putting air into the wort???

[the new brew]

Right so i was reading this post about fermenting, the person put air into his or her wort??? but i thought oxygen in the wort was a bad thing, but they went on to say that if helps the yeast ferment quicker so now im abit confused?? help lol

 

[the new brew]

the person even gos on to say that you can use an aquarium pump and airstone i'm sure that madness in it???

 

[Darcey]

Hello there!

Ok wort is the beer before its fermented. So its the sugary hoppy goodness that you want to make in to beer. Yeast as a living organism requires some oxygen to get going properly and turn that sugar into alcohol. As you boil the wort you are removing the oxygen from the liquid so you need to reintroduce some of it. Normally you can do this by splashing the wort before adding the yeast.

Once the now beer is fermented if you introduce oxygen you can artifiically age the beer creating a cardboard like taste. So splash before yeast.. not after!

(On a finer point some people dont think you should splash HOT wort only cold wort just before you put the yeast in!). But thats a point of finer debate about yeast strains etc!

D :thumb:

 

[radioactive]

I think its more a case of you wont want to get air into the finished beer not the wort the wort mixture will indeed benefit from some air getting in to assist in making it easy for yeast production I think maybe you did not quite read or understand the what you read is all so yes to air before its been fermented out as then its Beer and to put air in then will quickly overage the product I feel overaged a lot ITs not good

 

[jonnymorris]

A bit of punctuation wouldn't go amiss.

 

[Vossy1]

As for D's advice

the person even gos on to say that you can use an aquarium pump and airstone i'm sure that madness in it???

Nope, there are a few different ways of getting air into cool wort, you can
run the wort from boiler into the fv from a height (standard method, it's o.k)
use a sanitised manual whisk (o.k but hard work),
plaster paddle/drill combo (very easy)
air pump, preferably with in line filter and airstone (preferably a sintered metal stone as easier to sanitise)
and you could use an oxygen cylinder if you really want to.

* list not exhaustive

 

[Megaross]

It's about anaerobic and aerobic yeast activity, yeast needs oxygen to multiply essentially so more oxygen = bigger stronger yeast strain and a quicker, healthier fermentation.

 

[Hawks]

My local micro runs an air pump ( via filter ) into the wort as it leaves the plate chiller on it's way to the FV. I was impressed with the way of doing it as less to sanitise on the way ( no air stone needed... ) :thumb:

I don't have a plate chiller though so I spray into the FV still.

 

[PD]

A nice bright red paint paddle from B&Q ( £3 ish ) dunked into sanitiser as the wort is cooling. Fitted to electric drill. and the wort given a 5 min whizzzzzzzzzz
Frothy man.
Yeast added and the brew sealed to ferment.

 

[phettebs]

I run pure O2 through a diffusion stone. I went that route after reading a white paper on the various methods of introducing oxygen into the wort and the O2 through a stone provided the most saturation. Plus it looked cool. :-)

 

[Wezzel]

Er... I just stir mine quite fast with a stick.

Never had a problem :-)

 

[Andy.H]

Only brewed kit beers so far, but I just pour/top up from a height and stir a bit. Seems to work :)

 

[Darcey]

Er... I just stir mine quite fast with a stick.

Never had a problem :-)

Sounds good to me!

 

[Vossy1]

My local micro runs an air pump ( via filter ) into the wort as it leaves the plate chiller on it's way to the FV. I was impressed with the way of doing it as less to sanitise on the way ( no air stone needed... )

I would imagine they probably get a lot of 'agitation' with their set up which will increase the oxygen take up, I'm not so sure it would be as effective for home brewing. I use almost the same set up but with an airstone attachment in the racking arm.



Air in from left, wort in from beneath, out to fv right (airstone inside T)

 

[Hawks]

I would imagine they probably get a lot of 'agitation' with their set up which will increase the oxygen take up, I'm not so sure it would be as effective for home brewing. I use almost the same set up but with an airstone attachment in the racking arm.



Air in from left, wort in from beneath, out to fv right (airstone inside T)

Aha - very very smart :thumb:

 

[rpt]

Do you actually need to aerate wort? Danstar say you don't need to when using their dried yeasts. If you are using liquid yeast and grow a big enough starter then you shouldn't need to then either. Yeast only needs oxygen to multiply - it produces alcohol once the oxygen has all been used up.

Cue Aleman (and everybody else) to tell me I'm talking nonsense!

 

[Vossy1]

I think you've answered your own question :grin: a yeast starter is just that, a starter, the yeast still need to multiply and grow. Not sure about that Danstar advice :hmm:

EDIT, Principals of Brewing Science, by Fix would disagree with Danstar

failure to dissolve an adequate amount of oxygen into the chilled wort can lead to a number of disorders

 

[Hawks]

As would my stalled ferments when I started...

 

[alawlor66430]

I just put the lid on and make sure my thumbs over the grommet hole, and pick it up and give it a good shoogle about for 2 or 3 mins, fair workout out on the arms to lol.